[Closed] Script – Batch Camera Render

I’ve just finished to develop some interesting script, so this is a little announcement.

      Shortest description - this is another reincarnation of the Batch Render manager, so if you are happy with bundled one I can't guarantee you the strong impression.
      
      Very first idea to write such script came to me when I started to learn Houdini. Houdini has node architecture, and for the rendering it uses output nodes. These nodes have properties to specify included/excluded lights and objects, so you can create several output nodes and specify camera/lighting/objects relationship for each node. It's great feature and you can implement same relationship in 3dsmax using batch render command with "scene states" where you can specify lighting options and "render preset" where you can specify rendering properties.
      
      So what the problem with batch render? It lacks two features - you can not specify nonsequential frames and you can not specify new output file location for several cameras (or views) at once. I'm working with arhitectural vizualisation and in my projects I have many animated cameras, usually one for each room or another space, and very often all these cameras need different lighting setup so I have to create many sun-lights, and then switch them on and off for each cameras. Personally I don't like 3dsmax's scene state feature mainly because of their implicit nature, and when I need to render new variant of several rooms simple task becomes nightmare.
      
      When you start this script it iterate over all cameras in scene and list them in the dialog box. To each of these cameras you can assign frame resolution, number of frames to render including nonsequential frames, output file location and lighting setup. All these properties can be changed for one or several selected cameras. Output file location is split to folder path and file name, so you can specify new folder for all selected cameras in scene. 'Lighting assignment' section contains three list: Solo light list contains lights that will be only lights turned on during the rendering, 'Forced On' and 'Forced Off' lights are turned on or off respectively during the rendering. After all these setting will be set up (if some properties is not set value from the Render Setup will be used), check the camera(s) in the list and hit Render button. Check Net Render checkbox to submit network render job.
      
      Ok, the post became little longer than I expected so here is little summary in relation to 3dsmax's Batch Render:
      
      pros:
      1.Several cameras can be altered at once.
      2.Nonsequential frames can be specified.
      3.Output folder can be specified separately from the file name.
      4.Lighting assignment is clear and obvious - just select the camera in list and you'll see which light will be turned on.
      
      cons:
      1.In Batch Render, when you send several network rendering jobs, Batch Render submits them all at one time and automatically gives them custom job names. With my batch renderer this works differently - each job is submitted separately, for example, if you checked three cameras and hit render with network rendering checkbox turned on, script submits network job three times, and every time you have to give a new name to network rendering job. It's a limitation, but actually comes down to adding "1", "2", "3" or such a thing to job name.
      2.There's only one preset for one camera. In Batch Render you can specify several presets with different settings for same camera. For me this is not a limitation, because 'one camera - one preset' is clear and enough for me.
      3.'Scene State', 'Render Preset' can not be assigned.
      
      And one more 'pro' in relation to other scripted batch renderers/camera managers - all information assigned to camera stored in user defined object properties so there's no persistent variables and if you delete the script or open scene on different 3dsmax you don't get messages about missed plugins/scripts and such things. So script is totally unobtrusive.
      
      I hope someone will find this script useful. Bug reports and suggestions are welcome.
      Script is located at scriptspot.com - [ http://scriptspot.com/3ds-max/batch-camera-render ]( http://scriptspot.com/3ds-max/batch-camera-render) 
    and on my website - [ http://sergepogosyan.com/scripts/BatchCameraRender15/ ]( http://sergepogosyan.com/scripts/BatchCameraRender15/)        
   [b]UPDATE:[/b] Link to new version.